I am feeling a little melancholy and reflective today as I am playing Christmas music that my mother and I used to listening to when I was growing up. She always started playing it around this time of the year and by the week before Halloween we had all of the Christmas cards addressed. She loved it so much, in fact, that her Sunday school class the Willing Workers put her in charge of the annual Christmas party. She would find the restaurant or hall to have it in and get it rented and then she would proceed to get the place cards ready and I would get to help her. I remember one year she found this little place that had what mom called notions and what-nots. They had party goods and a mixture of glassware and such and this particular year she found little miniature manger scenes and she was thrilled because she wanted to use them to put with the place cards.
So...she bought them and we got home with them and she began to get all of her things together for the party and mind you, it was still October...she was a planner for sure. She had a place card for each person and I helped her write each person's name on them and then she glittered them down with silver glitter and placed one of those lil' mangers on each one. The top of our dining room table was covered in them until they had dried and we could put them in boxes for transport.I really do wish I had pics of all of the years that she was in charge of the Christmas party and all of the cute ideas she came up with for decor.
It's funny really, the things that you think of when you get older. I truly did enjoy helping my mother with all of her crafty, decorating adventures from tossing around ideas, to finalizing them, to going to stores looking for just the right things and then getting it all together to see the beautiful finished product. My mother was truly gifted and I didn't even realize it really. She was just my mother and this is what she did. She was an excellent country cook, he was an amazing seamstress and I took it all for granted because she was my mother and that is what she did. The thought never occurred to me until years later that she was the reason that I was such a good party planner, decorator and caterer. Just never entered my mind that she should get any of the credit.....oh aren't we conceited and arrogant? LOL
I remember one time she and I were talking about gifts from God and how everyone had some special kind of gift that they possessed that was different from anyone else and she looked at me and said, "I don't reckon I have a gift." I said, "Mother! are you kidding me?" I have never known anyone that could sew like you. You sewed with a pattern, without a pattern, you could modify any pattern, you made up patterns in your mind and just started sewing. Oh my yes! You have a gift for sure. She looked at me almost shocked and said well..I guess so, I never thought of it like that. I just always had to sew so my kids would have clothes to wear and never thought much about it being a gift. I said mom, if you had been born in different circumstances you could have been a fashion designer. Now just think about that! She just smiled.
Each of us have been specifically designed and created by a loving God that loves diversity and embraces the oddities in people. Lord knows I have several and now have learned to appreciate them and that has set me free from the self-conscious demon that hounded me for years. My mother had the exact same issue. She was always self-conscious about her looks, when she was quite beautiful. She was always self-conscious about her cooking when she was a very good cook, especially chicken-n-dumplings, chocolate pie and biscuits and so many other wonderful things. She projected onto me self-consciousness and low self-esteem without even meaning to. For years my mother and I had a very strained relationship, at best. We just couldn't seem to get along for more than a few days at a time.
I had a lot of anger, resentment and down right bitterness over some unresolved issues from my childhood and I just would not let it go. I would say that I couldn't but the truth is, I just wouldn't and it made both of us miserable. When I finally allowed God to begin the healing process in me, He sent me to Arkansas to help with my mother. We argued and carried on like we hated one another. This went on for a really long time. I would cry out to God and it was like He was not taking my calls. I felt like I had been put on hold at the switchboard in Heaven. But through the years of healing, restoration and much much grace, our relationship has been really good for several years. Now...at what seems to be the ending of my mother's life, I am at peace as is she. It is well with our souls. We have learned to appreciate each other. We have learned to listen to one another and through tragedy, pain, misunderstanding, trial and much error we have become like two peas in a pod.
Isn't God amazing? How He would take two broken people and bring them together to make them whole and turn their lives into something beautiful and meaningful that will last? God is so good and there are not adequate words to describe how grateful I am that I came to Arkansas. I had to pray through about that because I left family, friends and all behind and never went back. Of course for visits but that is all. This was a mission from God and I will finish it. I have ministered, preached, sang, written blogs, lead people to Christ, counseled with drug addicts, alcoholics, abused and battered women and I still consider my mother my best and first ministry. Many times I wanted to run away from her. Many times we barely could stand each other but God had a plan that would be fulfilled. He wanted to bring wholeness and restoration and that is what He has done.
When I look back now over my years with mother, I find joy, happiness, lots of smiles, lots of homemade chocolate candy from scratch, lots of blackberry cobblers, lots of beautiful veggies from mother's garden, lots of Elvis music playing on the stereo, lots of gospel singings, lots of Revivals, lots of beautiful flowers that mom carefully planted around our home,lots of beautiful dressed, custom designed by mom and lots of love that I never really saw until my later years. I can now look back and see all the good and toss the bad and say it was all for the good and can glean and glean from it all and move forward. I am writing my mothers memories and for the first time in my life, I really truly understand my mother's journey. She was and is such a loving person. She was and is full of encouragement. She was and is beautiful. She was and is a gifted woman. All of the things that made up her life, made her who she was and is today. I always took that for granted and God has allowed me a small window into her heart to see it all and to write it down. What an awesome gift and honored privilege to get to do this. To be able to tell my mother's story with dignity and grace so that all of her pain will not be wasted. God always has a plan and even though we don't see it or even know or care about it, it is still there working out for our good and for His glory.
